[labcomputer]

I’m sort of amazed this has to be explicitly stated:

Because most YouTube creators (even the hobbyists) are at least partially motivated by money, and if you take away all the money they will likely make less content or stop altogether. I understand that it’s fun to get things for free, but that’s usually not sustainable.

[ndriscoll]

The point is that's fine, and it is perfectly sustainable for people to do things they enjoy for free. It'd perhaps not be sustainable for someone to play video games as a full-time job, but maybe that's okay (or even desirable from a societal resource allocation standpoint)?

[xena]

Simply make rent, housing, and food free. Then people need not make money for the majority of needs.

[ndriscoll]

Indeed:

https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/what-is-gen-zs-no...

> According to a recent report by decision intelligence company Morning Consult, which surveyed over 2,000 adults in the U.S., 57% of Gen Zers said they'd be an influencer if given the opportunity, compared to 41% of adults from all age groups.

If true, possibly the most damning rebuttal of UBI proponents that there is.

[johnnyanmac]

I don't see how. They are young adults and of course they want to be [flashy job]. Some may do it out of passion, some will inevitably realize the platform exploits them and moves on so they can have stability, or pay rent. Trust me, I'm a game dev, the 2000's version of this, succeeded by the band musicians of the 90's/80's.

UBI would bring out more passionate people and not force the passionate but disheartened to drop out. meanwhile, the passionate who do stick it will optimize for money. So they can pay rent. Or worse, the unpassionate marketers take over and the discipline is reduced to slop (we've probably been here for ~10 years now).

[ndriscoll]

Because they're saying if they could sustain themselves, they'd have their job be to... eat at restaurants, play video games, travel, try on clothes, wear makeup, etc. Basically be an exact conservative caricature of socialists.

[kjkjadksj]

The irony is that its a caricature of rich nepo babies under consumer capitalism vs socialism. In a pure socialist society (good example of this is US government or military jobs) you still work and there wouldn’t be such striking wealth inequality on display.

[maxglute]

Less content frequently better content. Hobby as content job may just not be sustainable in another form. Tons of hobbyist creators jumped on the full time content mill job and burn out. Maybe in another world they have their hobby on the side and put out 1/10th content slowly, without the incentive to make filler to keep bills paid. TBH sometimes when work and passion mix, passion takes a back seat. It would be different if youtube algo doesn't incentivize this type of content milling, but it does.

[kelnos]

I think that's fine, though. Maybe we should have different platforms. Maybe we have a platform just for people who post stuff out of love for their craft, and don't expect any sort of compensation. And then we have a platform for people who want to monetize, and the platform itself has a subscription fee that gets distributed to creators based on views, or... something. Anything, really.

Maybe this could all be YouTube, but creators decide on a per-video basis whether they're uploading publicly or only to paid viewers. I dunno, there are so many other models.

The current situation with YouTubers asking people to subscribe to their Patreon or whatever is so weird, since often they have to distribute patron perks outside of YouTube, or via unlisted links, or whatever. I assume Google hasn't built in paid subscriptions option for fear of anti-trust regulation, but an integrated solution like that would likely be better for both creators and viewers.

[johnnyanmac]

> Maybe we should have different platforms. Maybe we have a platform just for people who post stuff out of love for their craft, and don't expect any sort of compensation

There are plenty of alternative video hosting sites if you seek that. So, why are you still on Youtube?

>but creators decide on a per-video basis whether they're uploading publicly or only to paid viewers. I dunno, there are so many other models.

Sure, works for Onlyfans. they even blend in both subscriptions AND PPV behind the sub. And we know how quality that content is (no offense to the models there. but come on, I've seen $100 for 2 pictures, behind a $20/month subscription. You're not 2000's Brittany Spears).

> I assume Google hasn't built in paid subscriptions option for fear of anti-trust regulation

They do. CC's can enable Memberships and upload videos specific to that.

The issue is that

1. the memberships are small for many right now. Conseuqnces of being late to the party.

2. what's offered isn't necessarily going to be even higher quality than a public video.

3. ad rev from non-subbed views is still signifigant. Making a paid subscription for certain videos can mean brining in less money.

4. That lower view count affects your algorithm for growing.

It's complex. And sadly, outside of the OF model most people simply don't want to pay for content. They get bored and they move to Tiktok and that's the real endgame should YT fall.

[ndriscoll]

They do have that functionality[0]. The elephant in the room to me when discussing these things is that people aren't wrong when they won't pay for most "content". The overwhelming majority of it brainless filler-noise that a lot of people probably only look at because they don't know what else to do with their time. If actually pressed to come up with how much they'd pay for it, they correctly come up with $0 as the answer. Unfortunately, they don't then figure that it's not worth their attention either.

[0] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7636690

[sdoering]

If they want to make money, they are totally free to have a website hosting their content behind a paywall.

Than I can decide if their content is worth money to me (let me tell you: in 999 out of 1000 "creators" it isn't).

But I already pay for a few select content creators. And happily shell out more than I would pay YT for an adfree experience.

[johnnyanmac]

Spoilers: the 1 out of 1000's won't get your money either because of any number of arbitrary reasons unrelated to their craft that is conjured up.

- Slow website/video host? Great now they need to pay for a better host or pay a web dev to optimize their site.

- Not responive? now that dev/service needs more money.

- pay is too much (meanwhile they still can't even make minimum wage)? Well, their fault for valuing themselves over a McDonalds' employee

- they pivot to premium teaching and now are a "scam"? Why am I here, I can google and learn this for free on Youtube

You can't win with some people.

[sdoering]

They receive my money, as I pay them the way they ask for it.

I am actually not responsible for their choices of how they spend it.

Everybody has to invest something to deliver their craft. A handyman needs tools and materials. A carpenter as well. They pay taxes. And so on. That’s the reality of doing business. If they are not business savvy enough to turn a profit. Not my responsibility.

That’s called free market capitalism by the way. Everybody is free to try to make money on their terms in any given environment. But nobody is entitled to actually make money. That’s how the market actually acts as an agent for economic and business evolution. Not the worst thing there is, given how well real existing socialism worked. I grew up next to the GDR. I know how "strong" their economy was. How successful their companies were.

Other aspects, like creating a social net to mitigate the worst effects of capitalism on the people is a topic for a different thread imho, though.